Hedo Turkoglu may be good at shooting baskets, but when it comes to the camera-toting public, he's got a thing or two to learn.

The picture that started it all: The Star recovered Jazmine Singh’s photo from her phone SIM card. The hand in the foreground is a male friend of Singh’s, obscuring pal Meghan Kesivic. Hedo Turkoglu’s face is on the right.

Hedo Turkoglu may be good at shooting baskets, but when it comes to the camera-toting public, he's got a thing or two to learn.

In an age when just about everyone is toting a camera-equipped cellphone, celebrities and sports stars – even ordinary people – are still working out the etiquette of what to do when they're captured in a bystander's random shot.

Turkoglu, signed by the Raptors to a five-year, $52 million (U.S.) contract last summer, figured he was being photographed when Jazmine Singh, out with some friends at Yorkville's Lobby nightclub early Thursday, decided to snap a shot of friend Meghan Kesivic sitting across the table.

That's when Turkoglu – or his security guard, depending on who's telling the tale – grabbed Singh's phone from her hand and "deleted" the photo.

Singh said she was stunned when at around 1 a.m. a "giant 7-foot man" reached over, grabbed the phone from her hand and did his erasing trick.

Later Thursday, Star photo maestros got their hands on the memory card in Singh's phone, did their magic, and now the photo's back.

Turns out it's a typical club shot, blurry and murky, showing part of Singh's friend, another friend's arm and, if you really, really knew who Turkoglu is, you just might recognize him as the partially obscured face in the background.

But apparently the chance of being recognized was enough to send Turkoglu into photo-destroying mode. That's when Singh and her friends asked Lobby's security for help that they were told the big guy was a basketball player with the Raptors and – in not so many words – that he could get away with it.

"He just ripped the phone out of my hand – I thought he was trying to steal it," said Singh, still incredulous a day later. "I had no idea who he was. I didn't care who he was. No one has the right to do that."

Turkoglu was on the defensive.

The Turkish import told the Star Thursday he was at the bar "trying to chill" with friends, when he saw a flash go off. He said that's when he asked a security guard to grab the phone and delete the pictures.

"I don't like people taking my picture, especially in the club, before asking. She did. I said, `Did you ask me?' She said no. I said, `I want you to delete it'," Turkoglu told the Star's Dave Feschuk following Thursday's practice at the Air Canada Centre.

"There was a guy with me, a security guy, he deleted it," said Turkoglu.

Singh says he never even tried to speak with her. The 24-year-old says she would have willingly deleted any photos he was mistakenly in, if Turkoglu had simply asked instead of "reaching out his long arm and simply grabbing the phone right out of my hands.

"I think he just saw a flash and freaked out," she said.

Kesivic, 23, said Turkoglu's story doesn't add up, since she's not a basketball fan and didn't even know who he was. "He could have knocked on my door and tried to sell me something, I would have had no idea who he was."

It was only when they went home, and searched online, that they confirmed it was Turkoglu.

Last summer the Raptors lured Turkoglu away from the Orlando Magic to Toronto. In July, his agent Lon Babby said the 30-year-old and his family were thrilled to move to a city with a strong Turkish community. Despite the initial excitement when he joined, he has struggled to perform on court.

Canadian privacy laws allow anyone to take photos of anyone in a public place, regardless of what they're doing, and publish them.

Taking photos in a private venue, such as a club, requires advance permission from those in charge, but it's not illegal to just go ahead and shoot.

But the case of private photos being deleted from a camera phone is vague; Toronto police say it is unlikely charges would be laid for such an incident, since no one was hurt and nothing tangible was stolen.

Singh and Kesivic say they don't plan to take any further action against Turkoglu, other than taking their experience with him public.

"It was very demeaning to us," said Kesivic, as she recalled how Turkoglu's friends laughed at them after he eventually returned the phone.

"I know how these things work: he is a regular, he comes in there and can drop so much more money than we can," she said. "They think they can do whatever, and get away with it."

Singh and Kesivic said Turkoglu was with three male friends; no women were at the table.

Management at Lobby said they had no comment on the incident, which Turkoglu says happened early Wednesday morning instead.

The episode comes at a time when professional athletes are dealing with the ups and downs of real-time stardom: Blogs like drunkathlete.com that post scandalous photos; fans crashing locker rooms to snatch pictures; and bitter ex-girlfriends willing to sell personal and often compromising photographs to the highest bidder.

The perils of the cellphone paparazzi have made many athletes overly cautious of even the most innocuous of photo requests.

But if the women were hoping for at least an apology, they may have to give up waiting. He likely won't be saying sorry any time soon.

"I don't hide this kind of stuff," Turkoglu said. "If somebody else (takes a picture without asking) I'm going to do the same thing again."

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.